This Card-Review article was written by Ross Fertel and was published first on "The Continuing Committee (trekcc.org)" at Nov 15th, 2016.

If you’ve seen the latest spoiler on the site today and are wondering just what the heck is going on, worry no longer.

Put simply, the 22nd century Terran Empire needs a Headquarters and a Time Location. The problem is, we barely saw anything of Earth planetside onscreen and the only actual glimpse of Earth we got, apart from the planet as a whole, was in the blurry background when Gardner was talking on the viewscreen. Not exactly engaging material, but it did put Creative in a bit of a bind; how would they represent these cards?

Thankfully and answer came from the man responsible for most of the In a Mirror, Darkly two-parter, Mike Sussman. The plan was always to continue the Mirror Universe as kind of a sub-series. Cancellation called those plans off fairly quickly, but when it came time to write about the Mirror Universe in prose form, Margaret Clark reached out to Sussman to flesh out his plans, if only unofficially.

And continue the story he did. The novel picks up right where the episode left off, with Hoshi quickly being proclaimed Empress of the Empire. It is very much the novelization of the unscripted fifth season, including support from Shran, who the showrunners would have added to the cast had the series continued.

So anyways what happens is… actually, you’ll need to read the book for that, but suffice it to say, Emperors have a habit of relocating their base of power. In Hoshi’s case, that meant Kyoto Palace in Japan. And thus, a story concept for these cards was found. It ties in nicely with the aired episodes and lets everyone focus their attention elsewhere.

They also fit thematically. Want to play someone for free? Go ahead to the Imperial Throne Room directly and report to the Empress. Want someone else? Protect the Timeline and you are well on your way to keeping pace with your opponent. Note that tossing in Crossover: An Invitation will open your options a bit more.

As a quick aside, a lot of the mirror versions of planets we didn’t see on the show per se are flipped to make them ‘mirror’ versions, but that was simply not something that could be done with Earth for reasons that are hopefully obvious.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this look at the expanded universe and how it can benefit the game, especially if you’re a fan of the mirror universe as seen on Enterprise.